Glenn Greenwald gets to Brass Tacks: Biden, Ukraine, War, Loan Guarantees
Glenn Greenwald's article censored by The Intercept is the best and most comprehensive work on the Biden controversy. I hope everyone here can take the time to read it because we will need this insight to cope with whatever happens next week and going forward.
The most important part of it, I think, is Greenwald's focus on Biden's dealing in a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine. I have emphasized his strongest point with bold type, below.
Arming NAZI paramilitary groups was a separate subsidy to Ukraine, but was it a separate policy? Killing and removing the people of eastern Ukraine worked hand in hand with our policy of loan guarantees. For what? If Ukraine was struggling so much, how could an "energy holding company," Burisma, afford to pay a lawyer $50,000 a month? Where was the money coming from, where was it going, and why was it accompanied by NAZI death squads?
The mainstream media answers such questions with the theory that the U.S. was trying to clean up Ukraine. I don't know how to describe my disgust with that assertion, but with all the respect I have for the writers and readers at C99, I have to ask, Does that sound right to you?
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored
... Much of this controversy centers on Biden's aggressive efforts while Vice President in late 2015 to force the Ukrainian government to fire its Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, and replace him with someone acceptable to the U.S., which turned out to be Yuriy Lutsenko. These events are undisputed by virtue of a video of Biden boasting in front of an audience of how he flew to Kiev and forced the Ukrainians to fire Shokhin, upon pain of losing $1 billion in aid.
But two towering questions have long been prompted by these events, and the recently published emails make them more urgent than ever: 1) was the firing of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor such a high priority for Biden as Vice President of the U.S. because of his son's highly lucrative role on the board of Burisma, and 2) if that was not the motive, why was it so important for Biden to dictate who the chief prosecutor of Ukraine was?
The standard answer to the question about Biden's motive -- offered both by Biden and his media defenders -- is that he, along with the IMF and EU, wanted Shokhin fired because the U.S. and its allies were eager to clean up Ukraine, and they viewed Shokhin as insufficiently vigilant in fighting corruption.
“Biden’s brief was to sweet-talk and jawbone Poroshenko into making reforms that Ukraine’s Western benefactors wanted to see as,” wrote the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler in what the Post calls a “fact-check.” Kessler also endorsed the key defense of Biden: that the firing of Shokhin was bad for Burima, not good for it. “The United States viewed [Shokhin] as ineffective and beholden to Poroshenko and Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchs. In particular, Shokin had failed to pursue an investigation of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky,” Kessler claims.
But that claim does not even pass the laugh test. The U.S. and its European allies are not opposed to corruption by their puppet regimes. They are allies with the most corrupt regimes on the planet, from Riyadh to Cairo, and always have been. Since when does the U.S. devote itself to ensuring good government in the nations it is trying to control? If anything, allowing corruption to flourish has been a key tool in enabling the U.S. to exert power in other countries and to open up their markets to U.S. companies...
I think with this statement Greenwald is clarifying the entire period of deception, impeachment, desperation and malfeasance we have witnessed in the last 4 years.
Comments
Last 4 years?
Let's get real which Matt Taibbi doesn't (can't read the article because it's behind a paywall):
Good grief. Where was the WMD curiosity? (iirc correctly that was way back in 2002) More directly related to Burisma, where were the reporters in 2014 when Hunter Biden and Devon Archer signed on as directors of Burisma? Why weren't they peppering Obama, the WH, Joe Biden, and SoS John Kerry on the impropriety of the administration's point man on Ukraine son getting a fat paycheck from Burisma? [Note: Kerry's stepson departed from his partnership with Hunter and Devon shortly after they made their Burisma deal; so that sure looks as someone could see that it was inappropriate.] Why didn't the Obama admin either put the kibosh on Hunter's deal or take Joe Biden off Ukraine?
The Obama admin was hip deep is all sorts of ugly stuff in Ukraine. Not that they probably cared about Ukraine but it was their path to a new Cold War with Russia. There were many cooks in the kitchen and it's possible that none of them know exactly what others were up to. Is it possible that Hunter and Devon were collecting intell for the admin? Or was it, "Oh, well Joe only has a few years left in office, and Hunter needs to put food on the table. This will be good for Joe's family who don't have the same financial advantages that the rest of us have." [Note: Hunter's then wife and Michelle Obama were very close as were one of their daughters.] Reporters won't notice and if they do won't care about the on their way out Bidens.
As Glenn does note:
Too bad Facebook and Twitter didn't suppress that one and by doing so give it more attention. It might have derailed Biden's primary campaign and not left us with a choice between two unsuitable nominees.
Finally:
Again, has been previously reported. However, it would be curious indeed if Biden took this upon himself to help out his son and wasn't tasked by the WH to do this. Why? We don't know because Obama etal. aren't going to talk and reporters sure as hell aren't going to challenge the Obama or John Kerry. That's where the real story is and for all the words in his long screed, Greenwald doesn't even get there.
Greenwald's latest
- on the lies and hypocrisy of the MSM is here:
CNN Is Just The Latest News Outlet To Prove Deliberate Lying Is Not An Impediment to Employment
"If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions.
- Thomas Sowell
corruption makes the best allies /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
Biden indites himself
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY]
(1 min)
Pretty good reporting on US Ukraine dirty coup here...
https://thegrayzone.com/category/ukraine/
Glenn just left his very lucrative Intercept job over this. The substack paywall is his attempt to create a substitute salary.
He explains here
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYyn_XGAsCs]
(16 min)
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Yesterday I watched Joe Rogan's interview with GG
and it was a reminder of how good of an interviewer he is, asking very good questions and not interrupting the one he is interviewing.
I've enjoyed his interviews of Dr. Cornel West, as well as Bernie Sanders, but this one stands out with it's wide range of subjects that GG addressed from censorship,to why he resigned from The Intercept to media failures on the truth along with the story of meeting Edward Snowden (with a few days questioning him like a prosecutor) in Hong Kong, and many other issues including those facing Trans people.
Joe Rogan not only asked questions that impressed me, his own comments were very good and it kept the dialogue between him and Glenn Greenwald moving at a good pace.
Due to the length of the interview I planned to watch it in parts, but I couldn't stop watching, it was that good and informative.
They both obviously enjoyed the interview and in closing agreed they had to do this again.
What made it even better was knowing that this show has a huge following, enough to get Spotify to offer him $100 million to switch to them (which he did moving to a new studio from LA to Austin Tx.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA
Thank you for the link
and for the description. I will try to watch it as soon as possible.
Another thing I'd never heard of was the story behind
all those Countries that generally accepted whistle blowers seeking asylum, like the UK, France, Germany,and Sweden (among others) that refused Edward Snowden asylum.
We all know Snowden had to take a route from Hong Kong to Ecuador avoiding US airspace, and the Obama administration trapped him in the Russian airport by suspending his passport, but I didn't know so many Countries were asked for asylum by Snowden. I also didn't know about the part Joe Biden specifically played in those denials.
Strangely enough, apart from all those Democratic,supposedly sovereign Allied Countries,denying Snowden refuge and right to even cross their airspace on his way to Ecuador, Edward Snowden got trapped in the only Country where he would be safe from the US persecution...Russia.
My, how things have changed just in my lifetime from Russian dissidents seeking asylum in the US and/or its Allies and now the script is flipped.
Lastly, the US and it's 'vassal Countries' as V Putin has called them, inadvertantly saved Edward Snowden from a fate that he could share with Julian Assange who is facing 175 years in a US SuperMax prison for releasing classified information after the new leader of Ecuador gave up Julian Assange.
Amazing after growing up during the McCarthy era, which has returned in full force, I'm now wishing Assange had sought asylum in the Russian embassy.
I have no reason to doubt that Julian Assange, along with his wife with their two children have many times wished the same thing.
Who knows, maybe some day that border wall being built will be our own Berlin Wall. We are certainly pointed that direction.
More Brass Tacks - Giuliani interview
Focused more on China than Ukraine. Not like this is going to be
carried in any coherent form elsewhere in mainstream media (Fox possibly
excepted) so you might as well catch it here
Rudy claims Bidens are hopelessly compromised WRT China and lays out specific criminal charges he believes Uncle Joe could/should be charged with.
When MSM have to mention Giuliani at all it's usually muttered references to his being a Trump/Putin minion gone off the rails. Zero mention though, that he has prosecuted around a hundred federal cases, many involving racketeering, money laundering, corruption... and might just know what the hell he's talking about when he says there is credible evidence of serious crimes having been committed.